Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Question for all you monitor enthusiast. I have a 2.1 trio of blue tree monitors that I might have to sell in a couple weeks due to me having to move. Whats a fair price to sell them as a group? Any help and or opinions will be greatly appreciated.
Here is a little background on them. They have all been to vet twice and have been treated and have clean fecals. They eat scrambled eggs and canned diet cat food. According to my vet the canned cat food (diet)is one of the best things for monitors. I have had them for over six months and they are totally problem free. I feed them every other day and this seems to keep them active and not over-weight.

thanks for any help,
SP

i don't know about a montary value for 2.1, but there is a male listed recently on the classifieds, start with that.

understand that the Blue Trees have been tossed around hand to hand to hand, to hand, and seemingly OUTSIDE the circles of monitor keepers, hence their STILL REMAINING wild caught look two years after they were brought in (keep them from being overweight? great, how about at least getting good weight, and feeding everyday like those guys should be eating?). i have yet to see a picture of a healthy looking Blue Tree. if yours look great, please please please post a pic.

anyway, value is poor, since so many folks have been burned by the Blue Tree opportunity. there are lots of males, very few actual females.

get a new vet, any decent monitor keeper/breeder/vet should know the value of cat food in the diet (it is not a good value!).

good luck with your sale, get what you can get, i feel bad for the okey-doke guy that paid $5k each when those were first imported...
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

I fed my rudicollis half a turkey and cheese sandwich yesterday and he loved it. hahaha
Take care and good talking to you today,
Mike
PS Kind of ironic with the post, eh? (I even write Canadian)

If you want the next owner to have healthy V. macraei - STOP the canned cat crap!! They eat walking stick bugs, katydids and alike where they come from, no cat food. Cat food is too high in protein and garbage garbage garbage filler junk in it - maybe even mad cow prion (haha)....Good luck to the next owner...
cheers,
mbayless

I just want to say thanks for the people who took the time to write even if all I was getting was some negative feed back. This is the main reason I dont post on these forums. If you look at what most national zoos feed there monitor species you'll find on some of there websites that they feed a canned carnivorus diet. The closest thing to this is canned diet turkey or liver cat food. Keep in mind Im not using the cheap stuff, Im using IAMS or SCIENCE DIET. I know its not what they eat in the wild but they have great weight and are so active I dont see the harm. As far as my vet goes he is one of the best. Dr Jarchow is one of the most recognized vets in the reptile field. Just ask Frank Retes.
Look I was just looking for a few opinions on price but I know its hard to give without pictures and I dont have a way to post on this forum. Thanks for your time.

You can buy carnivore diet online... it's probably better than the cat food. Iams and Science Diet are both grocery store brands, which in my opinion makes them bad for cats.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Im sorry I started all this. Trust me when I say I care for my animals. If any of you have kept blue tree's you all know how hard it can be to get them to eat. Like I said before sorry I even started this. I think I'll just keep them just to keep everyone from private emailing me and telling me off. As for Frank Retes, I in no way intended anyone to think that these are your husbandry practices. I know they are not. I was only commenting on Dr. Jarchow.

I do agree, Jim is one heck of a nice guy and a good vet. But we do not agree on canned foods, I too, think it would be foolish to feed them. Whole food items seem to allow far more towards life events that any other diet.

Also about using zoos as a model. I would rethink that. Most zoos do not have the same interest as private keepers. In most cases, their main interest is to maintain an animal for display. Breeding reptiles in zoos normally means more work and they have enough of that. They feed canned food because its cheap and handy. Which is not the best of reasons.

In the private world, people pay high prices, in the hopes of reproducing them. This is done for many reasons, each person has their own agenda. But breeding them allows for life events and a continuing source of intertainment. Most people get bored if the caged animals do not progress.

I believe that is what Robyn was refering to, about them being passed around. Once monitors, specially wild caught ones, get abused, they are rarely good as breeders. So they get passed from keeper to keeper. good luck FR

With cat food, or canned monitor food, as most feed rodents (whole rodents), its cheap is much much better for them, and the ones that do get results usually. Check the National zoos web site for what they feed any monitors, youll find they feed rats. The last time I checked Chicago zoo uses whole rodents and occaisional pieces of beef with Komodos. Ive heard about the San diego zoo diet but they didnt get consistant results until after they switched to whole rodents.

Shvar,
You don't know what you're talking about with San Diego. Where did you hear we didn't get consistent results until we switched to whole food? I love how people just get an idea and go with it. That could not be further from the truth.

I only feed whole food items such as quail. rodents, and chicks.
In the wild monitors arent going to find kibbles and bits.

Ground turkey, dog food, cat food, canned monitor diet etc.
I never claimed to breed any monitors but do yours breed once, twice, or more times a year?
The National Zoo uses rodents and gets results, Chicago uses them with other meats etc and gets results, how are your animals at SanDiego doing in comparison? I havent heard of any breedings consistant from there. I was told you had no luck without whole animals as a basis for their diets.

So you "were told" huh? Maybe next time you should try the source before you speak for it. I am a researcher at the zoo and do not try to breed anything there but Cyclura. I never tried to breed any of the zillion albigularis we had either (they were housed with their own sexes, not paired, for hormonal research), but they always laid eggs. My dragons were never paired and also laid. As for animals in the herphouse, the only paired monitors that are not same sex are green trees, and they have produced young (not eggs, young) the last two years. I also keep and have bred my share of monitors at home. I did an experiment using only ground turkey and my ackies produced 3 clutches in a row, no worries, turkey only. In Australia, I had red ackies breeding on turkey and crickets. SDZ does not use cat or dog food, or whatever else your source says. Animals get whole foods and turkey diet and are all doing very well. I cannot vouch for other zoos and you may not want to either.

You stated that crickets and turkey were used with the ackies, yet ackies can live off of dusted crickets their whole life. You just told me the animals were fed whole animals and SDZ turkey diet, just as I said they arent fed the turkey diet exclusively their whole lives.
I asked from your response what results you had with cat or dog food or the SDZ diet as that was the original posters idea, that you guys use it exclusively and no whole animal foods. I never claimed you used the dog or cat food, but I new you used whole animal foods from the articles written (Reptile magazine, CRES article on white throated monitors). As for the other zoos I mentioned they have already stated in books, magazine articles, and videos that they use whole rodents and one supplements rodents occaisionally with pieces of beef as the komodos diet.